


A Last Embrace for the Dead

by TiamatisObscure



Category: Original Work
Genre: Angst, Angst?, Apocalyptic Plague, Children who are mightily unfortunate, Does it count as major character death if it's one of your characters?, Gen, General Graphic Symptoms of Oncoming Death, Implied Abandonment/Betrayal, Purple Prose, Siblings, yeah...
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-19
Updated: 2018-01-19
Packaged: 2019-03-06 15:29:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13414206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TiamatisObscure/pseuds/TiamatisObscure
Summary: A nameless girl searches for her brother as the world decays around her.





	A Last Embrace for the Dead

**Author's Note:**

> More notes at the end...  
> But please read this with constructive criticism in mind!

She hadn’t been able to escape the epidemic, so she returned to where it had begun, at least for her. Her desperation echoed in her every movement, in her frantic rasping breaths, in her torn nails and grasping hands. She limped down the wall in her search, her eyes darting, irregular and red stained, as though someone had painted them over with blood. She is weak. She is weak. She has always been weak. It took the apocalypse to make her understand that.

What would he say, if he saw me now?

Would there be forgiveness?

Can I forgive myself?

The girl staggers on, holding herself up by willpower alone. Dirt cakes her emaciated form, and dried streaks of salt highlight the contours of her face. Dried blood cracks and flakes on her cheeks as she gasps shallowly. She passes a dying man, futile twitches and seizures gripping his body as he lies in a cooling pool of blood and vomit. In this world, she thinks, you are either lying to yourself or lying dead. There is no difference, perhaps, not to her. Not anymore.

He always called me a liar.

I’m not lying any more.

I’m coming home, brother.

She was searching for a memory. She was searching for skinny arms, goosebump boy, a too-big coat on a too small body. (Or perhaps she was searching for pleading, begging, screams. Don’t leave me alone! Don’t leave me alone. Don’t leave... She left.) Another shallow breath of the smoky air, and she coughs, deep, chest-wracking, bringing up bloody phlegm into the dirty palm of her hand. Her knees falter. She tears her nails along the brick beside her to prevent herself from falling. If she falls, she will never stand again. She doesn’t want to die alone. 

He died alone.

How could I let him die alone?

I can’t fall before I find him.

She must find him, see him, tell him how she loved him, how she regrets, before she was gone for good. Her mind wandered as she did, around corners and through the garbage in the alley. Oh, there were so many bright days, bright memories, untainted by the smoke-dark of the present, where she tastes burning bodies and unwashed flesh in the very air. She knows. She knew. She lived. Once. There were days spent in lazy silence. Evenings spent in quiet conversation. Loud arguments in front of the bathroom door each morning. Complaints about his inconsistent washing of his feet, a scent so much less offensive than burning hair, the barbeque stench of pyres, the sour burn of vomit, the sick stink of viscera rotting on the pavement.

I’d give anything to go back to those days.

Anything at all.

I don’t have anything left to give.

There! Ahead! She sees the familiar coat. Her brother, she found him. She wraps her arms around the small body. At his side, finally. She speaks with a voice rough and clotted with disuse, words tumbling raw and unshaped off her lips, knives and scalpels in her throat, sharp as glass, hurting even as they heal. 

“I’m sorry I couldn’t help you. 

I’m sorry I left you behind.

I’m sorry…” 

A cough and a smile, a small, bloody smile, lips cracking and splitting as they stretch, showing stained teeth. It feels right that coming home hurts. Her blood tastes of copper and salt, of penance. Her eyes are dry. But tears taste of bitter regrets, so she does not mind. She has had enough of regrets. (She can never regret enough.)

“I’m sorry for being mean to you, and for not keeping my promise to protect you. 

I couldn’t bring you with me, I didn’t, I couldn’t! 

You’ve forgiven me everything I’ve ever done, and I can only hope you forgive me this.”

His bones are windchimes, and clack together as she shakes, shuddering, seizing. It is almost enough of an answer. The smoke-rough air slices her throat with every shallow gasp. The sky is dusk purple and red. Hazy. Like blood in the water. 

“I know I told you I’d die before you did, but you know that I’m a liar.

I know I wasn’t there for you, but I am now; I remembered.

You aren’t alone anymore.”

She wants to die here, of the plague, in the cold embrace of her younger brother. As though she had never left. And now she never will. That is her final coherent thought before the seizures take her, hopefully to somewhere where she can escape the burning pain and the chill cruelty of the world. Her body shudders and twitches, oozing blood from the corners of its mouth where its teeth cut into its tongue, then lies still on the hard pavement, holding a coat bundling picked clean bones in its arms. 

Just one more corpse on the streets of the city for the sanitation crew to pick up. 

Just one more body for the fires to consume. 

Just one last embrace for the dead.

**Author's Note:**

> Well, hi all. Thanks for reading.  
> I originally wrote this as part of a vocabulary based assignment. You know how it is, use x words in a paragraph? That devolved into an early incarnation of this, which then made its way to my teacher, who I believe would've sent me in for counseling if I'd ever done something similar in that class again.  
> Yeah. Now, it's another excercise in purple prose and stretching my angst-muscles.  
> Please comment with suggestions/criticism!


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